Eugene Kaspersky isn't your usual Russian billionaire. He'll discuss the wonder of walking in the Kimberleys (where he was, again, earlier this year) and the look of the desert, rather than the thrill of driving very fast cars (although he'll wax lyrical about that, too).
But wait through that. Wait, until finally his blue eyes fasten earnestly and he speaks about his real passion. Cybersecurity.
![Eugene Kaspersky, a Russian mathematician who became a leading cybersecurity expert and businessman.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171006195054im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/6/i/4/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gyta6g.png/1507000414249.jpg)
Hello? Any readers still there?
Expecting anyone to find the detailed mechanics of computer security interesting is similar to assuming readers may be interested in how the camber of a road affects vehicle performance. We are, however, crucially interested in the downstream effect, and that's the point here. Just because cars are complex doesn't mean we can't use them. The workings of the internet are complex too; the key is to get the rules right.
![The US Department of Homeland has banned the use of Kaspersky software in government agencies.](http://web.archive.org./web/20171006195054im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/w/0/c/f/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gyta6g.png/1507000414249.jpg)
In the United States, where I am at the moment, the government has demanded that federal agencies stop using –Kaspersky software. There is, of course, no credible evidence – none at all of any "issues" with Kaspersky programs, which is perhaps why the man himself is highly energised, trying to prove there are no back doors allowing anyone to tamper with programs.
It's always difficult, however, to prove that something doesn't exist. Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that Kaspersky revealed the details of the Stuxnet attack, whereby the US and Israel successfully crippled Iran's nuclear industry, the first known, deliberate, state-on-state cyber assault.
The Australian government isn't banning Kaspersky. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet says that, despite a continual risk assessments, it's determined no problems exist with the software.
It seems likelier that Kaspersky was simply caught up as collateral damage. The reasoning seems to go that, because the Kremlin campaigned to disrupt last year's US presidential election, anyone Russian should be punished. The fact that Facebook and Twitter actually distributed the false information seems completely irrelevant as far as the US Department of Homeland Security is concerned. Facebook and Twitter, of course, are American. Kaspersky is not.
Which leds me to investigate the company's Australian arm. Was this, similarly, a supposed hotbed of Russian hackers? After all, the general manager is Anastasia Rae, which sounds kind of Russian – until you realise she was once a little Greek-Australian girl at Coburg Primary School in Melbourne. She knows her business depends on reputation. When the loss from a targeted attack can run to millions of dollars, Rae knows there's more to be made from good products than facilitating the flow of false news on the internet.
(I should probably declare that my daughters' names are Anastasia and Eugenia, so I may be a Russian spy, too. Fortunately, Fairfax pay me munificently, ensuring my reporting is as pure as the driven snow.)
But the problem with throwing mud is that some inevitably sticks.
In this case, confusion is being created between two very different things: a deliberate electronic assault is compared to the outcome of very natural processes, like people sharing news and emailing one another.
Last week, the (Australian) Department of Human Services hosted an electronic war game between teams from rival departments. Over five days, different agencies simulated a series of calculated attacks, trying to penetrate government infrastructure. It was an imaginative experiment. Organiser Narelle Devine deserves praise: she's trying to build the government's capacity to deal with such threats, because this can't be achieved when departments wreathe themselves in secrecy. Recently, for example, it was inadvertently revealed that a foreign government had penetrated critical (and supposedly protected) secret networks at PM&C; the hackers had used a backdoor from another insecure department. Secrecy over episodes like this doesn't make us safer; it simply means we have no idea about our vulnerabilities. This is what a deliberate attack looks like: exploration, penetration and then the insertion of a virus designed to attack, hide or monitor.
What happened in the US election is very different. The fault had nothing to do with Kaspersky's software and everything to do with the loose, freewheeling and ultimately hollow nature of so-called "social" media.
Genuine communities don't spend their time fostering lies and conspiracies. That's not the case with the new media. It makes money out of eyeballs and everyone knows these are attracted by sensation. I even find myself doing it, looking at the latest palpably incorrect instalments to flit through the ether, vanishing before they can be caught and the rubbish shredded.
That's what editors do. They're paid to check things and ensure they're correct.
But this costs money and slows things down, which is exactly why the technical whiz kids stress that they stand for "free speech". Sure it's free, which is why it's worth exactly what you pay for it: nothing. The danger is that it sounds plausible, fosters distrust and creates division – the very opposite of what a "social" network is meant to do.
Kaspersky has some good ideas about how to tackle this problem. He suggests creating different zones for the internet, depending on the level of security (and accuracy) required. Red would cover financial transactions, grey in the middle, and green for everything else. At least then we'd have some idea if stories have any factual content whatsoever, which may be a good start.
Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra author and columnist.